Brigid Schulte

• Director of the Better Life Lab & The Good Life Initiative at New America

• Author of the NY Times Bestseller 'Overwhelmed'

“Beautifully written, with searing facts, engaging stories, illuminating history, and wry personal observations. A must-read by a truly perceptive author!” – John de Graaf, editor of 'Take Back Your Time: Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America'

Brigid Schulte is Founding Director of The Good Life Initiative at the nonpartisan think tank, New America, and serves as Director of the Better Life Lab, working to transform policy, practice, and culture so that people and families have the opportunity to live their best lives at work and at home. She speaks worldwide on redesigning work cultures, reimagining gender roles for a fairer division of labor and opportunity, and recapturing the value of leisure.

Schulte is the author of The New York Times bestseller Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, named a Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year by The Washington Post and NPR, and a 2014 Good Reads Finalist for Best Business Book.

A member of The Washington Post team that won a 2008 Pulitzer Prize, she writes widely for publications including Slate, TIME, Forbes, The Guardian, and others, and is a frequent television and radio guest.

Schulte holds an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Follow her on Twitter @BrigidSchulte

Speech topics

How to Be a Great Leader and Also Have a Life

Whether you are working from home or working onsite, leadership can sometimes leave you feeling burnt out. You want to give the job and your team all you’ve got, but do you really have to give it ALL you’ve got? Can you also have an enriching personal life and find joy outside of work while also being a great leader? Can you encourage and give permission to your team to do the same? Join Brigid Schulte, author of How to Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, as she shares how you can make it all work and enjoy a better life.

Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love & Play when No One has the Time

Today many of us are caught up in a swirl of “Overwhelm,” for example Americans work among the longest hours of any advanced economy. We value busyness as a badge of honor. But, is all that time and attention we’re pouring into our jobs really ensuring the best and most innovative work? Much less a healthy and full life? That overwork culture is leading to burn out, stress, sickness and disengagement. Drawing on her extensive research for her best-selling book and in her role as director of The Better Life Lab at New America, Brigid uses stories and data to show how transforming that outdated work culture, focusing on mission, performance, flexibility and healthy, happy workers, not only leads to better work, but allows time for a better life.

Books

Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time

Overwhelmed is a book about time pressure and modern life.

Podcast

The Better Life Lab podcast from Slate and New America will show you why work-life balance seems so unattainable for so many people—and what we as individuals, can do to achieve it.

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